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Sighing, I wiped the blood and grime off my hands using a tattered piece of my old clothes, the fabric barely enough to soak up the mess.
Once I’d cleaned up, I tossed the soiled rag onto the floor and set it alight, watching as the flames consumed it. No sense leaving a trail for anything else to follow. The flickering light cast eerie shadows on the cave walls, shapes that seemed to writhe and twist before vanishing into darkness.
"Time to move," I told myself, adjusting the straps of my pack. The weight felt heavier somehow, burdened not just with supplies but with the knowledge of what awaited me.
El’s instructions had been vague, but he’d said that this tunnel would eventually lead to the final cavern—the one that held both the boss monster and, hopefully, the exit.
I steeled myself, mentally running through everything I knew, trying to picture the layout from El’s map as I began my trek deeper into the dark.
Time seemed to blur, the passage of minutes or hours indistinct. My thoughts drifted, filled with half-remembered fragments of a life I couldn't fully recall. Faces without names, places without context. It was maddening.
"Focus, damn it," I snapped, shaking my head as if to clear it. "Can't afford distractions."
The silence around me was thick, pressing in from all sides as I moved quietly, each step cautious, every sound muffled by the armor’s enchantments.
There—faint vibrations in the ground, subtle but unmistakable. Something large was moving nearby, its steps rumbling through the stone, each one sending a faint tremor up through my boots. I crouched instinctively, my armor’s passive enchantments cloaking me, blending my presence with the shadows. Moving slowly, I kept my body low, inching forward with painstaking caution as the vibrations grew stronger. The air was thick with the faint, acrid scent of monsters—musk and rot, tinged with the metallic tang of old blood.
Stopping and pausing to press a hand against the wall. The stone vibrated under my touch, a steady pulse like a distant heartbeat.
Unease prickled at the back of my neck. I crouched, slowing my movements, every sense on high alert. The silence was no longer empty; it was filled with the promise of something vast and dangerous.
Moving cautiously, I edged forward until I saw a faint glow ahead—a dim, reddish light that bathed the tunnel in an otherworldly hue.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," I muttered sarcastically.
Reaching the end of the passage, I pressed myself against the wall, taking a deep, steadying breath.
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"Alright, Lexi," I told myself. "Moment of truth."
What I saw made my stomach lurch.
Fuck me…
In front of me lay an immense cavern, stretching out into a vast, hollow darkness. Stalactites hung like jagged teeth from the ceiling far above, casting twisted shadows in the dim, phosphorescent glow that seeped up from the stone floor. It was so vast that it felt like looking out over a nightmarish landscape, rather than an enclosed space. And I wasn’t alone. Not even close.
I was perched on one of many openings along the cavern walls, like holes in an ant burrow. Dozens of these passages dotted the walls on my side, each one opening out into the cavern, creating a network of entryways that reminded me of some grotesque hive. But what held my attention, what set my pulse hammering in my ears, were the creatures filling the cavern below.
Hundreds of lizard monsters sprawled across the cavern floor, their bodies rippling with muscle, their scaled skin glinting dully in the faint light. Some were small, skittering creatures, their heads twitching as they prowled through the shadows, sniffing the air. Others were massive, towering brutes with claws that dug deep grooves into the stone as they moved, their eyes cold and unfeeling, like machines programmed solely for destruction.
"Fuck," I whispered, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. "This is bad. Really fucking bad."
Fuuu…breathe in and breathe out Lexi
They were everywhere, scattered across the floor, some pacing restlessly, others gathered in clusters, growling and snapping at each other. The air was thick with the sound of their movements—claws scraping against stone, low, guttural hisses, and the occasional shriek as one creature asserted its dominance over another.
And at the center of it all, rising like some terrible monument, was a massive crystal formation, its surface jagged and uneven, pulsing faintly with a dull, reddish glow. The boss monster.
I clenched my grip on the stone wall, my knuckles turning white as I took it all in. This… this was going to be a bloodbath. There was no other way to describe it. If I wanted to get to the exit, I’d have to wade through that sea of monsters, each one as lethal as the ones I’d already faced, maybe more so. And the boss… I didn’t even want to think about what kind of creature guarded that crystal.
But there was no turning back. This was the way El had mapped out, the path I had chosen. My hand tightened around the hilt of my sword, the weight of it grounding me, reminding me of every fight I’d survived to get here.
Alright, Alexis, I thought, a cold determination settling over me. No other choice but to forward.
"The boss monster," I realized, dread settling in my stomach like lead. "And the exit's probably on the other side."
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. This was a nightmare. There was no way I could fight through that horde—not alone.
"Think, Alexis," I urged myself. "There's gotta be a way."
Options were limited. I could try to sneak through, but with that many monsters, stealth seemed like a pipe dream. One misstep, one stray sound, and I'd be torn apart.
"Maybe I can create a distraction," I considered. "But with what?"
My mind raced, cycling through possibilities. Then, an idea sparked.
A very dumb idea… a start atleast.
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